This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the 348th episode of the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

Most of the time when I start outlining a story it's been kicking around in my brain for at least a couple years maybe

longer with my current work-in- progress dreambreaker things are a little

different since I actually only came up with the first spark of an idea last

summer it is of course a sequel to my already

published portal fantasy dreamlanders so the story world and characters have been in my head for

years and years. But the outlining process is definitely different and in

a lot of ways more challenging since I don't know the story as well as I'm accustomed

knowing my stories. There's a lot more to figure out as I constantly juggle the structure, character

arc, and theme balls to make sure everything's progressing at the same pace.

People often ask me how to tell when an outline is finished.

And it's a hard question to answer because it's largely a feeling.

When I feel like I understand the whole story that all its major questions have been answered.

That's when I know I'm finished and can move on to the next phase.

In the meantime, patience and application is what's required, but fortunately it's also a very enjoyable process.

The latest post on my blog is four places to find your story's best conflict. Story conflict is about so much more

than the battle between protagonist and antagonist. Learn from Marvel's The Avengers how to create rich and deep conflict

between all your characters. This is the sixth in the series the do's and

don'ts of storytelling according to Marvel, which you can find on my site at helping

writers become authors.com.

And now I hope you enjoyed this week's podcast entitled The Most Important Thing

you'll Ever do. Right. I find myself a little trepidacious as I sit down to record this

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